2+2 Forum Post RE Partouche Poker tour

[Stuart Murray]

Picked this off facebook, thought it would be interesting reading for everyone on the forum!

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/61/mtt-community/cheating-accepted-partouche-poker-tour-i-wouldve-gotten-away-too-868424/

Cheating accepted in Partouche Poker Tour (AND I WOULD'VE GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT TOO)
Alright this is gonna be a bit lengthy but I need to write this down while I remember it all in clear details. This might not be a smart post to make by me, I might be burning some bridges, get unpopular with some people or even banned from the casino (this sounds absurd, but after you have read what I have to say it might not seem so far fetched).

For the last couple of days I have been playing the Partouche Poker events at the Palm Beach casino in France. In those days I have seen or heard about the following incidents:

1) Jordankickz and Tmay420 had signed up for day 1 but were removed from it because a bunch of pros including Matusow arrived last minute and decided to play day 1 instead of day 2 and since there was a cap on day 1 jordankickz and tmay got booted so the pros could play. The tournament director offered them a meal at a nice restaurant as compensation.

2) I have several times seen french players showing each other their cards as they mucked as the last person in the hand without the dealer forcing them to show. I have heard of several times during the tournament where non-french players have done the same thing and has been forced to show their hand.

3) A danish player went on break on day 1 with 43k in chips and had 33k when he got back. They had noted the chip counts right before the break and checked the cameras afterwards yet nothing was done about it.

Everyone else who has been here probably has their own story to add and while nothing of this is very relevant to the story it should give you an idea of what kind of casino we are dealing with.

So on to the incident in question that happened a couple of hours into todays sideevent. My table consists of Michael Binger, Jonathan (rookiekkqq), an unknown non-french guy and five french players.
A french player and the unknown is in a huge hand on a 2238r board. French guy leads out for 2k, non-french guy makes it 5,7k and the french guy makes to 13k leaving around 20k behind effective.
After non-french guy has tanked for a minute an older french guy calls the clock on him and the dealer agrees that he has sufficient time for his decision. Floorman comes over and without saying a word starts clocking him.
When there is ten seconds left he starts the countdown and I protest telling him that he should count in english instead of french since the guy clearly dosen't speak the language. Floorman goes "trois, two, one" and between the two and one the non-french guy throws in a pile of 5k chips putting the other player all-in. Other guy SNAPmucks putting his hand over the line and after five seconds or so the non-french player turns over A7o for a complete bluff, and this is where things starts to get crazy.

After staring at the board for like 5 seconds the french player now puts his hand BEHIND the line again and claims that the other guys hand is dead because he didn't react in time and the floorman counted to zero, which is obviously total bull**** since the floorman didn't say a word.

Me and Binger starts protesting but all of a sudden the four other french players at the table AND the floorman agrees that his hand is dead and starts stacking the pot up and shipping it to the french player. Me, Jonathan, Binger and the non-french guy all starts protesting loudly and appealing to call someone with more authority because the ruling is terrible and downright cheating. Four-five men in suits comes over and discusses the hand for 10 minutes in french (none of them speaks english) and even though we try to argue and protest they somehow rule that the french player now has the option to call off his chips AFTER seeing his opponents bluff! The guy calls with ATo (he was NEVER trying to induce with that trust me) and the river is a 6 giving him the pot.

At this point we are are absolutely furious and Binger says that it's the most obvious angle he has seen in 10 years of live play and that he wants his money back if they are gonna allow cheating in the casino. At this point EVERY table in the room is watching us and with Binger being the most vocal of us the floormen refuses to answer any of our questions and they end up escorting Binger out of the room.

A couple of minutes after we go on break and I find Binger who has gotten his buy-in refunded and a ban from the casino (not sure for how long) simply for speaking his mind. When I return to the table after the break the french player is missing and I ask a floorman (they are still watching our table closely since me and Jonathan are not willing to let this go) why Binger and french guy are both missing.
He tells me that Binger has been disqualified (but gives me no further elaboration when I ask) and that the french player got a 14 minute penalty. I try to ask them what rule the penalty is for but they wont tell me but I keep insisting and shouting louder until finally one floorman whispers in my ear that it isn't for breaking any rule but for "unsportsmanlike conduct".
I ask them how they can give a penalty to someone they just ruled in favor of but they just keep on ignoring me.
Conveniently enough they decide to break our table as the next because me and Jonathan were still speaking about it (even though we weren't even close to being next in breaking order).

It's also worth noting that Ruben had a hand that was ruled the exact opposite in the same event where his french opponent threw his cards into the muck on the river faceup and was afterwards allowed to call after Ruben said he had a bluff. I don't remember exactly how it went down though so hopefully Ruben will chime in and tell the story.

I don't really expect anything to come out of this but I feel like people should be aware of how (non-french) players are being treated here and I really needed to vent while it was still fresh in my memory. It turned out to be a long post so I might have messed up some of the details, if you have any clarifying questions feel free to ask.

[DCJ001]

If someone mucks when you are bluffing, showing a bluff could get you in trouble.

Things aren't always run well in the United States. But, from what I've seen and heard, anarchy exists in much of the rest of the world.

[Nick C]

Stuart,

Interesting, I'll just scratch France off my list of poker destinations!

[Oddvark]

Hmmm, when I strip away all the dross, the relevant facts to rule upon seem to be:

On the turn, Player A acts.  Player B raises all-in.  Player A moves his cards over "the line", but does not release them (and the delear does not collect them into the muck pile). Player B exposes his cards.

What are Player A's options?

As I see it, (assuming there is no rule that cards moved over "the line" are dead) Player A's cards have not been mucked and are still live. Player B exposed his cards prematurely and must live with the consequences.  So Player A can call or fold.  And Player B could even be given a penalty for exposing his cards (though in this situation, losing the hand would be penalty enough).  It sounds to me like the TDs made the correct decision on that hand.

[Spence]

I take issue with a few things here. First, the floorman supposedly killing or not killing the english players hand. The chips went into the pot on time so there should be no reason to kill his hand. Next, the half muck across the line by the french player is suspect but not really against any rules mentioned in THIS statement. Once the english player opens his hand he did make a poor decision but I don't believe he should be martyred for it. Allowing the french player to later have option to call having seen his opponents hand is realistically the cheating part here. If we could at least return the portion that was bet, in this case 5000 chips and run the board to completion it would stand as better than allowing an obvious angle/cheat from the frenchman. Was there collusion here? Possibly... Did the TD rule in favour of one of his regular players? Or favour his own nation? Again possibly. Maybe Oddvark has it right. Though this is an odd circumstance taking into account all things said, if their mucking rule does not incorporate the line then the ruling would stand as good.
Maybe the only true thing missing is a penalty?